Error in simulation using University VWF file Quartus Prime Lite V18.0

[Bobd]

When attempting to perform Functional Simulation on a University VWF file, an error indicating that the file could not be found was returned. The name of the VWF file was not changed, as it had earlier been found that changing the name from the default "waveformX.vwf)" name (where X appears to indicate a number representing the number of times a simulation has been run) that Quartus assigned it. In the Simulation Settings file, it was noted that in some cases, when running simulations on the same computer, an additional / (slash) was inserted into the path, e.g.

onerror {exit -code 1}
vlib work
vlog -work work intro.vo
vlog -work work /Waveform4.vwf.vt

When the slash was removed and the settings saved, running the simulation after saving it went without fault.

Has anyone seen similar behavior and is there some setting that can be changed in Quartus to avoid this error? It appears to be inconsistent between computers running the same version that had the software installed at the same time.

Thanks for reviewing this post!

[RichardTanSY_Intel]

Try not to change the name of the .vwf file and instead use the default .vwf file. Create a new .vwf file if needed. 

To change back to default, in the waveform editor, Simulation -> Simulation Settings -> Restore Defaults.

[Bobd]

Hello:

Thanks for your quick reply. I had used the default name (waveformx.vwf where x represents the number that Quartus assigns) as this had been a known problem in the past. The extra slash that seems to get inserted into the path, making it such that the file cannot be found,  is my concern.

When I corrected the fault (by removing the backslash), the simulation ran ok. At this time, thinking that this might've been a quirk that somehow happened in the file save process, I had also done as you suggested, and hit the default tab. When I did so, the slash returned!

The real concern that I have is that this problem doesn't seem to occur with all installations of Quartus that I have done on different computers. I see it on a few, but not on others. I don't know if this is a consequence of some computers having the program downloaded from an image file, but I'm going to do more research on that.

Do you have any other suggestions? The work work filenames that appeared in the path as shown in my earlier message are perhaps troublesome as they don't specifically point to a path on the hard drive or other storage area where the file goes, but seem to use an internal variable in the program to decide where that location is.

Thanks and best regards,

Bob

[RichardTanSY_Intel]

I do not see this behavior on my own computer, probably as you said, it is only happening on certain computers. The only suggestion I got is probably to install the latest Quartus version and hopefully, the issue does not occur. 

Could you help to share your project with this issue so I can try to duplicate it? Please help to provide the steps to reproduce.

[Bobd]

Hello:

Thanks for your reply. I have not been able to replicate this problem consistently on one project even on the same computer, so I'm not sure what to say about it. It does appear that in some cases, a subfolder is being created by the software when the project is saved to an external drive (e.g. thumb drive) but that isn't consistent either.

As to trying the latest version of Quartus Prime, an earlier issue was found when attempting to use the University program VWF with V20.1 in a posting I made in July. The -novopt switch was present in the 20.1 version and caused problems. The response at the time was as follows:

Appreaciated your efort for raising the issue to improve our service. For now you have to remove the -novopt manually in your script and we will be working on it to fix in the next version released. In the modelsim for QP 18.0 release note:

 o The -novopt switch will be accepted in 10.7 with a deprecation suppressible error message.

 o In 10.8 or a subsequent release, the -novopt switch will not be accepted by the tool and cause tool to exit with error message.

I note that V20.3 was announced earlier this week. Has this problem been corrected as noted above? If so, I'd be interested in trying out the later version to see if it resolves the other problem noted.

Thanks

Bob